


Trying to Forget

by Pridia



Series: Knowing [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Comfort, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Friendship, Heartbreak, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Injury Recovery, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 02 AU, interspecies pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2018-09-26 17:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9913814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pridia/pseuds/Pridia
Summary: Both The Doctor and Rose are trying to move on after they got separated. This doesn't go without the necessary kinks in the road.





	1. Smith And Jones - Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> And here we are again, the sequel to I Want You To Know. I've been considering whether I would write this part for a while, why? Well, this is a mostly rewrite of series 3 and 4, I'm planning on adding original scenes and such a bit like I did in I Want You To Know. This part will go until Series 4 The Stolen Earth, somewhere around the moment The Doctor and Rose meet up again, I'm not entirely sure yet so you'll hopefully see that if I don't become tired of this after another 10 chapters (doubt it.) Also in this first chapter, I came across a problem, which I probably should've expected. TenXRose isn't my OTP, it's TenXMartha (judge all you want, I don't care.), I only wrote this because the idea was for TenXRose, I mean it's based on Doomsday what do you expect?. But TenXMartha is much more natural for me, so I had a lot of trouble not making them end up together, but it would make this a whole lot of more complicated if I did.... huh there's an idea... Yeah let's not. *Throws idea out of the window*. They will, however, have a healthier relationship than in the original series, I mean I'm not going to kick Martha out. They will become very good friends ;)
> 
> You can read this story on [Fanfiction.net ](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12391522/1/Trying-To-Forget) as well.

Martha was talking with her sister about her brother's birthday party that night when a man wearing a brown pinstripe suit with a brown overcoat walked up to her, she noticed that he was wearing a cast on his right hand, she wondered what had happened to his hand.

"Like so!" He said as if he was making a point and took off his tie.

"See?" He smiled at her, although it looked a bit forced, and then walked further again.

Martha turned around to look at him, as he walked away, puzzled and wondering whether he's okay.

_What was that about?_

She saw the same man again later in the hospital, he was the second patient of the day they had to examine. He was looking kinda sad at an imaginary spot on the ceiling as the walked in and she found herself once again wondering whether he was okay, well, he was in the hospital so there was clearly something wrong with him, but she was actually wondering whether he was okay mentally.

* * *

The Doctor was in the hold of the Autons struggling to get the anti-plastic, he had to stop the Nestene conciseness or all the humans would be murdered and he couldn't allow that.

"Just leave him!" He heard Rose's 'boyfriend' Rickey say. "There's nothing you can do."

"I've got no A Levels." he heard Rose say, "No job..." he wondered what she was going on about.

"No future." He heard the sound of metal on metal next to where her voice was coming from, she was _planning_ something.

"But I'll tell you what I have got. Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastic team."

He heard something come loose.

"I got the bronze!"

Then he saw her swinging across a chain, she went to kick the Autons holding him into the Nestene Consciousness, with the _anti-plastic!_ But then her foot caught on the clothing of one of the Autons and she lost her grip on the chain causing her to fall into the Consciousness as well.

"NOOOOO!"He screamed as he saw her body getting consumed by the Consciousness.

"ROSSEEE!" He bolted up in his bed tangled in his blanket.

 _It was just a nightmare._ He thought as he tried to get his breathing under control. _Right?_

He suddenly doubted himself and felt the urgent need to check on her. He quickly jumped out of bed, not even bothering to change out of his pyjamas and started quickly on his way down the corridors. The Doctor increased his pace and ran through the corridors of the TARDIS toward her bedroom.

"Rose?!" He opened the door to her bedroom and he suddenly found himself in the corridor of Platform One.

"Anyone in there?" He asked as he starts on getting the Sunfilter rising again.

"Let me out!" Rose answered him frantically.

"Oh, well, it would be you." The Doctor felt the panic building in his stomach, he couldn't lose her!

"Open the door."

"I am trying." He answered back frantically.

"Sunfilter descending. Sunfilter descending." The computer announced.

Then he finally got into the computer and got the Sunfilter to rise.

"Sunfilter rising. Sunfilter rising."

" _Yes_." The Doctor exclaimed in relief. He heard Rose sigh in relief as well.

"Sunfilter rising … Sunfilter descending."

"Oh come on!" The Doctor practically screamed out of frustration. He _had_ to save Rose he couldn't be without her!

"Will you stop mucking about!" Rose screamed at him.

"I am not mucking about!" He screamed back in frustration.

"Open the door!"

"Just hang on!" He groaned, his hearts were beating frantically in his chest, he was so afraid that he couldn't solve this.

"The locks melted!" He heard Rose scream at him.

"YEAH noticed that, thanks." He jabbed the sonic screwdriver inside the wires in an attempt to stop the Sunfilter from descending.

_To no avail._

Rose started screaming in agony.

"ROSE!" He started banging on the door, the screaming didn't stop, it actually got worse.

"NOOOOO! ROSEEEEE!" He screamed, vaguely aware of the tears streaming freely across his cheeks.

The screams were starting to die out.

"ROSSSSSEEEEEEE!" He bolted up in his bed tangled in his blanket.

 _It was just a nightmare._ He thought as he tried to get his breathing under control. _Right?_

He suddenly doubted himself and felt the urgent need to check on her. He quickly jumped out of bed, not even bothering to change out of his pyjamas and started quickly on his way down the corridors. The Doctor increased his pace and ran through the corridors of the TARDIS toward her bedroom.

"Rose?" He opened the door to her room and walked into it. Her sheets were ruffled, clearly, she had just gotten up out of the bed.

 _She's probably just in the bathroom._ He thought to himself.

"Rose?!" He asked. "Are you in here?"

Then he heard a scream from coming from her en suite.

"Rose! What's the matter!" He hurried towards her en suite, he hesitated at the door, what if she didn't want him to penetrate her privacy even though she just screamed?

"Doctor!" She screamed for him, pushing any doubt out of his mind as he opened the door and walked in.

Only to stop short halfway the doorway.

She was covered with some sort of green rash and there was blood on the mirror and over the sink as if she had just spit it out forcefully.

"Rose!" He took a step forward.

"Doctor..." She said very softly, she was crying. "What's goi..." The Doctor quickly dashed forward to catch her as she collapsed and had a seizure. He held on to her, careful not to get hurt.

_What's going on?!_

"Rose, heh... Rose it's going to be fine." He knew that she couldn't hear him but he said it more to comfort himself as he felt the tears burning in his eyes. He pulled out his sonic to scan her, to find out what was causing her body to react like this.

Then just as sudden as it started the seizure stopped, everything stopped. Her eyes were open, she _wasn't breathing._ He quickly went to check her pulse, which wasn't there either.

"Rose..." The tears started to fall he couldn't do anything.

Rose Tyler died on 27th April 2007, her 20th birthday.

* * *

The Doctor awoke with a gasp feeling the moisture on his cheek. He didn't instantly recognise where he was and quickly felt himself going in some defence mode to plan and get himself out of wherever he was when he remembered where he was.

_Royal Hope Hospital._

He had checked himself in yesterday because he had seen these plasma coils around the hospital and had wanted to investigate that, not that Sarah Jane would've allowed him to do that if he had asked her. She wasn't allowing him to go out and help to solve the crises, so he had gone behind her back. Oh, she would be angry about that, but he couldn't keep sitting still. he that took a deep breath and wiped his eyes, trying to calm his emotions, it had just been a dream, just a nightmare. Rose wasn't dead, she was just trapped in another universe, pregnant with his unborn son. He took another deep breath as he was overwhelmed with emotions about that. He quickly tried to press away those thoughts, he had better control over his emotions. And no stranger was going to catch him crying.

_not again!_

He cursed himself for falling asleep in the hospital, he knew that he would get a nightmare if he fell asleep. He had been getting them every time he slept in the past few weeks since he got separated from Rose, which was also the reason he had fallen asleep as he hadn't slept enough, even for a Time Lord, because of his nightmares.

He managed to get his emotions a bit under control when his doctor, Dr Stoker, came in with what appeared to be a group of medical students, he sighed internally and prepared himself for what was coming next.

"Now then Mr Tyler, a very good morning to you. How are you today?"  Dr Stoker asked him. He had used Rose's last name to honour her.

"Aw, not so bad, still a bit... blah." He answered unenthusiastically.

Martha frowned, he looked about ten times sadder than he had been when she saw him on the street, he also looked like he had just woken up, not surprisingly at this hour, and she suspected that he might've had a nightmare or something. She felt sorry for him, even though she didn't know what was causing him to be so sad or didn't actually know him.

"John Tyler, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains. Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me." Dr Stoker added sarcastically.

"That wasn't very clever, running around outside, was it?" Martha asked Mr Tyler.

"Sorry?" He looked at her in confusion.

"On Chancery Street this morning. You came up to me and took your tie off." He frowned.

"Really? What did I do that for?" He answered her unenthusiastically, there it was again that sad look she had seen on him a few times in the few minutes she had known him.

"I don't know, you just did."

"Not me. I was here, in bed. Ask the nurses." He told her. He suspected that it must've been a future version of himself that had done that, it would be an easy way to prove someone you can travel in time. He wondered why he would have to prove to her that he could travel in time, that would mean that she could become a companion and that Sarah Jane would give him back the key to the TARDIS. He found that he actually looked forward to both, well, it would've been weird for him not to look forward to getting access to the TARDIS again, but that he actually looked forward to having a new companion after Rose, well, Rose had grown to be more than just a companion, so taking on a new one wouldn't be replacing her, just so he wouldn't be lonely, he had done that several times after he had lost a companion anyway.

Martha had a quick look at his hand and saw that just like the man in the street he had a cast, so she asked even though she was fairly certain it had been the same man.

"Well, that's weird, cause it looked like you. Have you got a brother?"

"No." He answered and then continued in a sad murmur "At least not anymore." He quickly swallowed the sad thoughts of his dead brother away. He normally could take the thoughts but it was just on top of his grief for Rose and he couldn't take the combination of emotions.

Martha noticed it and wondered whether his brother had died recently or whether it was something that had happened years ago and that something else was causing him to be so sad. Either way, she could see that he went and obviously was still going through some tough times. She felt sorry for him, even though she didn't know him.

"As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones." Dr Stoker cut in.

"Sorry. Right." She apologised as she got out her stethoscope and put it on John's chest

and listened to his heartbeat, it was really fast, she frowned, he had a heart problem as well? Then she realised that the heartbeats had a harder and a softer beat like he had two hearts... no that couldn't be it, but if she only listened to the stronger one it sounded like a normal heartbeat. She looked up at him and moved the stereoscope to the other side of his chest, she _had_ to know, no matter what people would think of her trying the right chest to find a heart, and sure enough, she heard the exact _same!_

_He had two hearts!_

* * *

The Doctor knew that she had discovered it, she was clever, he could see that and he could also see that she was confused about it and he couldn't blame her. He was proud of her, several doctors had listened to his chest and none of them had made the connection of him having two hearts, only one doctor had mentioned that his heartbeat was a bit fast, but she had eventually thought that she had made it up. It was really incomprehensible for humans that he had two hearts, well, except for the medical student that was listening to his chest at the moment. He did hope that she would keep quiet about it, UNIT being informed about his whereabouts wasn't exactly something he wanted to happen.

He smiled at her and winked.

"I weep for further generations. Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?" Dr Stoker cut in.

 _She certainly hasn't, she's better at locating it than you are!_ The Doctor wanted to say but he bit his tongue. Dr Stoker had been one of the doctors who had listened to his chest and only had heard one heart, so actually, Miss Jones was doing a better at it than he had done.

Dr Stoker clearly never heard about being nice to patients or medical students for that matter, The Doctor wondered whether he would actually be nice to his own mother.

 _Probably not_.

The Doctor really wanted to tell him off and certainly, would've done it if it wouldn't blow away his cover. He actually was considering doing it anyway, but eventually decided against it. He looked back at Miss. Jones hoping that she wouldn't blow his cover either, but if she would he would certainly have a few words with Dr Stoker.

You can't treat your students like that!

"Um. I don't know. Stomach cramps?"

 _Thank you, Miss Jones!_ He vowed to himself to search her out later and answer any questions she might have, knowing that Rose would've wanted him to do that if she had been here. He had decided that he would make her proud, or at least try to do that. He found it quite hard to behave sometimes, but it was really the only reason he kept going, to make Rose proud. If he hadn't vowed it to himself, he would be curled up like a baby in bed all day at best... at worst... well, he avoided thinking of that. He had a goal and he wouldn't sink _that_ low. At least, he hoped that he wouldn't.

He knew that Sarah Jane thought that he wanted to go out to distract himself from his grief, while it was true that it was distracting him from his grief, it wasn't his primary reason, it was for Rose and their unborn son. He started feeling overwhelmed with emotions again and quickly chastened himself for going down that path again as he tried to push away the thoughts.

"That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart." Dr Stoker said.

He saw Miss Jones roll her eyes at that, which she could afford as the only person who could see her was him, maybe a bit inappropriate to that in front of a patient, he had to disprove of that, but he had resisted the urge to roll his eyes himself, so he could let that one slip. Dr Stoker had told Miss Jones to examine him, not to look at his patient's chart, also from what he gathered those students were just starting here, he doubted that they were ever taught about the charts before. The Doctor actually thought that Miss Jones was doing a great job for a doctor-in-training.

Dr Stoker picked up The Doctor's patient chart, received an electric shock, and dropped it.

"That happened to me this morning." Miss Jones said.

"I had the same thing on the door handle." One of the other students said.

"And me, on the lift." Another student spoke up.

"That's only to be expected. There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by, anyone."

The Doctor patiently waited until someone answered before he eventually mumbled.

"Benjamin Franklin." Barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

Apparently, Dr Stoker _had_ heard him.

"Correct!" The Doctor flashed him a forced smile, he tried not to think back to that day, Rose had been so worried when he got electrocuted when he was helping Ben. He hadn't been allowed to get out of bed for the better part of a _week_ , she had wanted him to recover from something he didn't feel anymore 10 minutes after it had happened. He hadn't complained, though, it was nice having her fretting over him.

"Moving on." Dr Stoker beckoned his students towards the next patient. "And next we have..."

the Doctor saw Miss Jones looking at him, he just smiled at her. Then she turned around and moved on to follow Dr Stoker.

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief, he had managed to get himself through the examination without breaking down again, something he was actually a bit proud of, he felt like he was actually capable of moving on after Rose.

He got brought breakfast and after that, he put on his dressing gown to go and search the hospital for extraterrestrial technology and in the meantime he tried to go and search out Miss Jones like he had promised himself earlier.

Well, he succeeded in the last task as he walked passed the staff kitchenette on his way back to his bed for lunch. He found Miss Jones in there, however, she was on the phone, so it would be inappropriate to disturb her so he just smiled and waved at her and vowed to try again later.

He was just back in his bed when he heard that people started to become worried about the rain, which from what he gathered was going _up_.

Well, _there_ was his extraterrestrial technology!

He thought as the building started shaking which caused him to fall out of bed and to land on his _broken_ hand causing him to groan in pain.

Eventually, the shaking stopped and he quickly got up and tried to figure out what exactly had happened. He quickly learned that they were on the moon.

_Who would move an Earth hospital to the moon!?_

At that point he heard the voice of who he thought was Miss Jones, he turned around and found that it was indeed Miss Jones and she was telling people to go back to their beds and that they would figure it out.

Well, when did he listen to things like that, The Doctor pulled his curtain around his bed and started on the task of getting dressed, his broken hand was aching from the fall so he tentatively reached out for the buttons on his pyjama jacket and hissed in pain.

He really needed to get that looked at later.

Magically he managed to undo the buttons, take off his pyjama and get mostly dressed, with some colourful inward curses, the only problems were his converses, he had chosen a red t-shirt to wear instead of his usual Oxford shirt with a tie as it was hell to get that properly donned with his hand. But his shoes were a problem, he had been able to tie them with some effort earlier but now there was no way he would be capable of doing so now, so he just tagged the shoelaces in his shoes and hoped that they would stay like that, which he suspected they wouldn't.

He had been listening to Miss Jones's reasoning and he was very pleased with what he heard. She was talking with a colleague about opening the windows and losing air.

"But they're not exactly air tight. If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?" He heard Miss Jones say at the moment he was done getting dressed.

The Doctor chose that moment to pull aside his bed-curtain.

"Very good point! Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?" He asked her.

"Martha." She answered him.

"And it was Jones, wasn't it?" She nodded at him. "Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?" The complete ordeal was distracting him completely from his grief over Rose.

"We can't be." He heard her colleague say.

 _Don't be rude_ He told himself, _Rose wouldn't have wanted that._ Too bad that thought was reminding him of his grief. He quickly shook himself out of it and decided to answer her.

"Well, evidently we still can." He told the colleague. "Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or …?" He asked the medical student.

"By the patients' lounge, yeah." She answered him while she was a bit stunned about his change in behaviour, besides the short lost look he just had, he almost looked happy. _Almost_ being the operative word.

"How about we go and take a look?"

"Okay."

"We might die." He pointed out.

"We might not." She countered back.

"Good! C'mon." He bit his tongue to refrain from saying anything rude to the colleague that was having a panic attack.


	2. Smith And Jones - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say, except I'm no expert on injuries and medical stuff and such, which I probably should've said in the previous chapter already but if there are any inaccuracies, I'm sorry I didn't do my research, as I didn't want to risk my ideas getting blown away with facts..... And I might be a tad lazy.... just a bit...ish.

* * *

Martha and The Doctor go to the patients' lounge and push the doors towards the balcony open together, then they proceed to walk on the balcony.

"We've got air! How does that work?"

"Just be glad it does."

"I've got a party tonight. It's my brother's twenty-first." The Doctor felt envy at that, wishing that he could have something similar to that, a family to visit, his thoughts went out to Rose and his unborn son, he wanted so bad to be with them, he even wanted to spent time with Jackie again. He quickly pushed the thoughts away, it wouldn't do for him to be sad, not now that these humans could be in some genuine danger.

"You okay?" He winced as his voice broke from the emotions he was trying to ignore.

"Yeah." Martha turned to him. "You?"

He merely nodded at her, looking at his trainers, causing him to notice that his trick with the shoe laces wasn't being very effective just as he had expected. They already started to fall out, converses weren't really wearable without being tied. He sighed and decided that he had to tie them and started doing so, he winced at the mere touch at his shoe laces.

Martha had noticed his predicament, his hand must be really hurting him, usually, people with broken hands weren't _that_ sensitive, were they?.

"Do you want me to help you with that?" She offered him.

He looked up sheepishly, for how much he wished he could do it himself, his hand was hurting really bad.

"Yes, please."

She got down on her knee and started tying his shoes.

"What happened to your hand?"

"I broke it."

"How did you break it?"

He looked at her and she could see tears in his eyes.

"I was a bit frustrated and decided to pick a fight with the wall, the wall won." He silently begged her not to ask further.

Which she luckily decided not to do, sensing his obvious reluctant on discussing it, which she didn't blame him for. Breaking your hand by hitting the wall wasn't really something to be proud of, no matter the reasoning.

"Okay, I'm not an expert on broken bones but I don't think it's good that it's so sensitive." She said as she stood up from tying his shoes.

"I know, I just fell on it during the shaking thingie that just happened. And eeer thank you, for..." He nodded at his shoes.

"No problem. You'll be okay with that hand?" She asked in concern.

"I've got to be, besides I've had worse."

"Worse?" She looked questioning at him.

"Rather not."

"Okay." She said, respecting his privacy.

They looked back out from the balcony.

"What do you think happened?" She asked.

"What do you think? " He asked back.

"Extraterrestrial. It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things." She heard Mr Tyler take a deep breath at that and thought that she saw tears form in his eyes.

 _He lost someone during the battle of Canary Wharf._ She concluded.

She decided to tell her story anyway, he could say his if he wanted to.

"I had a cousin, Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came back." She told him.

"I'm sorry." He offered his voice breaking again.

"Yeah." He took a deep breath.

"I was there. In the battle. Did your cousin look like you?" He turned towards her, she saw the tears running over his cheeks.

"Some people mistook us for twins." She laughed humourlessly.

"I was afraid of that." He murmured.

"You saw her?" He nodded. "Do you know what happened to her?"

"She died." He answered vaguely.

"How?"

He looked at her with a sad expression through his own tears, which, she was almost certain of it, had nothing to do with her cousin.

"You sure you want to know?"

"It wasn't pretty then?" She assumed, he shook his head. "Tell me."

He took a breath as he started explaining it.

"She was already dead before all those Cybermen came through."

"Came through?"

"They were from another universe, they travelled between universes. Those ghosts they were before that was just them travelling between universes."

"What did they do to her?"

"Well, a few of those Cybermen came through before the rest, assuring the safe passage of the others. I was trying to stop the ghost shifts to prevent them from coming through, and the people at Canary Warf planned on stopping them until the dangers were ehhh researched... errr let's keep it on that. But the Cybermen didn't like that so they must've captured your cousin and rewrote her brain to use her to hack into the system that made the Ghost shifts to happen, I broke the link but it was too late. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault... what about you?" She asked.

"What about me?" He looked puzzled.

"Well, you obviously lost someone..." He was still crying and he actually let out a sob then which caused her to add. "You don't have to."

He took a deep breath.

"I lost ehmm my ehmm well, we never really talked about what we were to each other, girlfriend? …" He sighed. "Doesn't feel right, girlfriend that sounds so... unpersonal... "

"You loved her?"

"Still do..." He sighed again. "I was going to ask her to marry me but... well..."

"I'm sorry." Martha said it was the only thing she could, she felt so sorry for him, although she had just met him.

"She was pregnant... and she's not dead, but..." He let out a sob.

Martha looked at the man, wondering what he meant, at the same time she wondered what had happened to his … girlfriend? She put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry." She told him sincerely. "But if she's not dead then how...?" She let the question hanging not sure how to ask it.

"It's complicated, she's fine but she's trapped somewhere and I can't reach her." He let out another sob. Then he pushed the thoughts of Rose back to a corner in his mind and dried his tears. "And I have no idea why I just told you all that."

"If you don't know, how am I suppose to know?" She asked.

"errr... I don't know." He admitted.

"Anyway, I promise you, Mr Tyler, we will find a way out. If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way."

"Probably, but it's not Tyler, that's not my real name."

"Who are you, then?"

"Well, people call me The Doctor, it's a thing where I'm from all of us got titles instead of names, well we've got names but we don't say them, except for a special occasion." He explained, Rose had told him that it would help if he put a bit of a story behind his name, so people would accept it easier.

"Why not?"

"Just our culture and before you ask, it's not a very well known culture."

"Okay, that might be your culture but as far as I'm concerned, you've got to earn that title."

He nodded.

"Fair enough, well, I'd better make a start, then. Let's have a look." He picks up a pebble with his good hand and throws it, it hits an invisible wall or something. "There must be some sort of force field keeping the air in."

"If that's like a bubble sealing us in, that means this is the only air we've got. What happens when it runs out?" Martha asked.

"How many people in this hospital?"

"I don't know, a thousand?"

"One thousand people. Suffocating."

"So we've been wasting air by chatting just now?"

"Well, not really as they're a bit late."

He pointed at the ship that was landing right that moment.

* * *

The Judoon had entered the hospital and started cataloguing the humans to find the alien they were looking for, The Doctor had given Martha a brief explanation that he was an alien and what the Judoon were, The Doctor had tried to get the computer working with one hand, which was rather difficult, and in the meantime had given Martha a very brief explanation of the sonic screwdriver in the process, he had also even more briefly explained to her how he had lost his laser spanner. After that, he had discovered that the Judoon had wiped the records.

He had just managed to restore the back-up and went to look for Martha, who nearly ran into him in the corridor.

"I've restored the back-up." He told her.

"I found her." She told him, slightly out of breath he now noticed.

"You what?" He asked in shock, then he noticed a Slab, who he assumed were following Martha. "Run!" He took Martha's hand and they quickly ran away from the Slab, he guided Martha down the stairs, where they saw the Judoon coming up the stairs so they dodged out towards the doorway, The Doctor saw the radiology room and got an idea to take down the Slabs using that so he ushered Martha inside.

He quickly locked the door locking the Slab out, ignoring the protests from his right hand as he _had_ to use it to close the door, they would certainly die if he didn't. He led Martha to the control chamber and told her.

"When I say 'now', press the button." He instructed her.

"But I don't know which one." She stated back.

"Then find out." He shot back and quickly went to the roentgen machine to increase the radiation, again ignoring the horrible pain in his hand, he decided that the first thing he would do after this was sorted was getting Sarah Jane to look at it. The Slab was trying to break in, The Doctor finished modifying the machine and aimed it at the door and waited for the slab to break in, just in time as the Slab finally broke down the door and after a few steps The Doctor yelled.

"Now!"

Martha activated the radiation, causing the slab to collapse.

"What did you do?" Martha asked as the radiation stopped.

"Increased the radiation by five thousand percent. Killed him dead." He answered back casually.

"But isn't that likely to kill you?" She wondered worriedly.

"Alien, Martha, I can handle a lot more radiation than humans can. We used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. It's safe for you to come out, I've absorbed it all. I do have to expel it, though, or it might actually harm me." He started bouncing and hoping, "If I concentrate I can shake the radiation out of my body into one spot." He explained as he did that. "It's in my left shoe. Here we go, here we go easy does it..." He started shaking his foot to get all the radiation out of his body. "Out, out, out, out, out, out, out. Ah, ah, ah, ah. It is, it is, it is, it is, it is hot. Ah hold on." He pulled his shoe off as quickly as he could with one hand and threw it in the dustbin. "Done."

"You're completely mad." Martha told him.

"Probably." He agreed. "But that was necessary to get the radiation out of my body." He winced at his hand and supported it with his other hand.

"You okay?"

"My hand really hurts." He sighed as he let go of it. "But that can't be helped."

He took a step and realised how inconvenient it was to be only wearing one shoe.

"Oh well." He carefully removed the other shoe and chucked it in the dustbin to be with its counterpart. "Better."

Martha had walked over to the Slab by now.

"So what is that thing? And where's it from? The planet Zovirax?"

"It's just a Slab. They're called Slabs. Basic slave drones, see? Solid leather, all the way through."

"It came with that woman, Mrs Finnegan. It worked for her. Just like a servant."

The Doctor pulled the remains of his screwdriver out of the machine.

"My sonic screwdriver!" He sighed and tossed it away, focusing his attention on Martha, knowing that it would be rude to focus on his screwdriver, which he had wanted to do.

"She was one of the patients, but she had a straw like some kind of vampire."

He nodded at her, telling her to continue.

"Miss Finnegan is the alien. She was drinking Mr Stoker's blood." Martha told him.

"Funny time to take a snack. You'd think she'd be hiding. Unless, no. Yes, that's it, wait a minute. Yes! Shape-changer. She wasn't drinking blood, she was assimilating it." The Doctor realised. "If she can assimilate Mr Stoker's blood, mimic the morphology, she can register as human. We've got to find her and show the Judoon. Come on!"

He runs off, Martha following him.

The Doctor quickly pulled Martha behind a water cooler as he saw another Slab.

"That's the thing about Slabs. The always travel in pairs." His voice broke as he remembered Rose again, they had been travelling as a pair for a good while.

Martha put a comforting hand on his arm.

"Do you have any backup?"

"Sort of... but that's not important right now. We're stuck on the moon running out of air with Judoon and a bloodsucking criminal, I'm not really capable of getting backup here, am I? Come on."

He stepped away from the water cooler right in front of a Judoon, who scans him.

"Non-human." The Judoon says.

"Oh my God, you really are an alien!"

"You were still having doubts? Run!"

They run away from the Judoon, who shot at them, they went upstairs and locked a door behind them.

"They've done this floor. Come on. The Judoon are logical and just a little bit thick. They won't go back to check a floor they've checked already. If we're lucky." He told Martha.

They made their way to Mr Stoker's office but stopped to have a small chat with one of Martha's fellow students.

"She's gone! She was here." Martha said as they entered the office.

"Yeah, well would you've stayed at the place you murdered someone until you get arrested?" He asked her as he examined Mr Stoker.

"Fair enough." She had to say.

"Drained him dry. Every last drop. I was right. She's a plasmavore." He closed Mr Stoker's eyes, something he had learned to do from Rose.

"What was she doing on Earth?"

"Hiding. On the run. Like Ronald Biggs in Rio de Janeiro. What's she doing now? She's still not safe. The Judoon could execute us all. Come on."

They leave the office.

"Think, think think. If I was a plasmavore surrounded by police, what would I do?" He then noticed the sign of the MRI. "Oh no."

Then the Judoon enter the corridor.

"Find the non-human. Execute." One of them says.

"Okay, Martha, I need time. You're going to have to hold them up."

"How do I do that?"

"I need to give you a trace of my DNA, so I need to do a genetic transfer and well... the best way to do that is to kiss you..." He hesitated, which Martha understood, he had recently lost the love of his life, he didn't want to kiss another woman.

"For the sake of everyone here, just do it!" She told him, making the decision for him.

He quickly grabbed her and kissed her, quite intimately, she suspected to make sure that traces of his DNA stayed on her. He let go of her and ran off.

She nodded to herself, holding up the Judoon, she could do that.

* * *

The Doctor ran through the corridors towards the MRI, then he walked into the MRI to see that Mrs Finnegan was working on the MRI just as he had expected. He took a deep breath and started his act as a shocked human.

"Have you seen, there are these things, those great big space rhino things, I mean rhinos from space. And we're on the moon. Great big space rhinos with guns on the moon. And I only came for my hand." He showed his hand, trying very hard not to show how much that hurt him. "It's alright now, well, of course, it will need time to heal, but it doesn't hurt anymore," He lied, the pain was actually really bad. "perfectly good treatment, I said to my wife, I'd recommend this place to anyone, but then we end up on the moon. And did I mention the rhinos?"

"Hold him!" Mrs Finnegan ordered her Slab, which then proceeded to take hold of The Doctor, who acted shocked.

The Doctor watched as she got back to the MRI.

"That thing, that big machine thing, is it supposed to be making that noise?" The Doctor faked ignorance.

"You wouldn't understand." Mrs Finnegan dismissed him.

"Isn't that a magnetic resonance imaging thing? Like an enormous sort of magnet? I did magnets at GCSE. Well, I failed, but all the same."

"The magnetic setting is now set to 50,000 Tesla."

_Oh oh!_

"Ooh. That's a bit strong, isn't it?" The Doctor really didn't like what he was hearing.

"I can send out a magnetic pulse that will fry the brainstems of every living thing within 250,000 miles. Except me, safe in this room."

 _Oh boy, it's worse than I expected._ He really hoped that his plan worked fast enough to stop her.

"But... hold on, hold on, I did geography for GCSE, I did pass that one, doesn't that distance include Earth?"

"Only the side facing the moon. The other half will survive. Call it my little gift."

_This is not good!_

"I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me, I'm a little out of my depth. I've spent the past fifteen years working as a postman. Why would you do that?"

"With everyone dead, the Judoon ships will be mine, to make my escape."

_Okay, for once I was expecting that part._

"Now, that's weird. You're talking like you're some sort of an alien."

"Right-o."

"No!" The Doctor faked disbelief.

"Oh, yes."

"You're joshing me."

"I am not."

"I'm talking to an alien? In hospital? What, has the place got an ET department?" The Doctor thought that he did a fine job on faking ignorance, maybe he could become an actor if things didn't work out with saving the universe.

"It's the perfect hiding place. Blood banks downstairs for a midnight feast and all this equipment I'm ready to arm myself with should the police come looking."

"So, those rhinos, they're looking for you?" It wasn't like he knew that ever since he walked in this room, at least that was what she thought.

"Yes. But I'm hidden." Mrs Finnegan held up her hand to show that she had been catalogued as human.

"Oh. Right! Maybe that's why they're increasing their scans." It was time to throw the bait, if it would mean that he would die to save the hospital, so be it. It wasn't like he had much to live for anyway.

"They're doing what?"

"Big chief rhino boy, he said, no sign of a non-human, we must increase our scans... up to setting two?" He said as if he didn't know what it meant.

"Then I must assimilate again."

_Bingo!_

"What does that mean?"

"I must appear to be human."

"Well, you're welcome to come home and meet the wife. She'd be honoured. We can have cake."

"Why should I have cake? I've got my little straw." she said as she opened the case of said straw and picked it up.

"That's nice. Milkshake? I like banana." He flashed her a smile.

"You're quite the funny man. And yet, I think, laughing on purpose at the darkness." _Oh, you've got no idea._ "I think it's time you found some peace. Steady him!" She ordered the Slab.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor was really becoming a bit scared, he found that he actually didn't want to die yet, he hoped that Martha would figure out how to work CPR on him, that could be the only thing that could save him as he had to hold off from regeneration to make his plan work.

The Slab pushed him down in a position that exposed his neck. Mrs Finnegan approached him with her straw.

"I'm afraid this is going to hurt. But if it's any consolation, the dead don't tend to remember." Then she put the straw to his neck and started sucking, which, indeed, did hurt quite a bit.

The Doctor found himself losing consciousness very quickly.

_I'm so sorry, Rose._

This was the last thought he had before he got pulled into darkness.

* * *

When The Doctor woke again he was aware of all the pain in his body but his need to breathe was overwhelming, he tried to breathe and started coughing while trying to get oxygen into his lungs, he tried to activate his respiratory bypass but found that it already had run out of oxygen. Then he became aware of Martha and realised that she had just saved his life.

"The scanner. She did something." Martha murmured weakly before passing out.

This made The Doctor remember the plans Mrs Finnegan told him about.

He gathered all remaining strength and started crawling towards the control room of the MRI while coughing. His hand screamed in protest as he put his weight on it because he couldn't find the energy to get up. He finally made it to the room and attempted to get the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket.

"Screwdriver." He murmured as he remembered that it was broken.

He then proceeded to unplug the cable which caused the machine to stop, leant back on something as he tried to catch his breath, which was impossible as there simply wasn't enough oxygen, even for him. At that moment all he could register was the pain in his body, everything was hurting but especially his hand and neck, at the point Miss Finnegan had put the straw, the exhaustion from not sleeping enough because of his nightmares also caught up to him and this combined with the lack of oxygen caused him to slowly sag toward the floor, he couldn't go anymore, this caused him to lose the control of his emotions as well and memories of The Time War, all the people he couldn't save, his family and _Rose_ were flashing for his eyes.

He was so far gone that he didn't notice that the Judoon had reversed the process and had put the hospital back in place. He also didn't notice that he could breathe a lot easier again.

* * *

Martha slowly woke up again, as the fresh oxygen hit her. At first, she wondered where she was, but then it hit her. She was in the hospital, with space rhinos and some sort of vampire, also with an alien who was called The Doctor.

_The Doctor!_

She opened her eyes as she shot up. She was in the MRI, apparently, he had been able to stop whatever it was that Mrs Finnegan had planned.

_Good!_

She also noticed that she was able to breathe again, they were probably back on Earth. Then the sounds of someone crying finally registered. She frowned and looked for its source. When she found it her heart broke at the sight, The Doctor laid on the floor of the control room of the MRI in foetal position, sobbing his heart... ehhh _hearts?_ out. She suspected that everything had become a bit too much for him to take.

She sighed and crouched next to him, she had to get him out of this, he needed to appear like nothing was wrong with him or they would examine him, which she suspected he wouldn't want to happen after something like this, they could lock him up or dissect him if they found out that he was an alien.

"Doctor." She shook him and tried to get him out of it.

After a few minutes she succeeded in getting him to stop crying, but he looked lost and he wasn't talking.

"Hey, listen to me. Try to act like nothings wrong. I'll guide you, come on." She helped him to get up and he leant heavy on her, he obviously wasn't fine.

"Doctor, like I said you need to act like you're fine, so you'll have to walk on your own." He slightly nodded and carefully tried to stand without help.

"There you go." She grabbed his hand to give him a bit of support. "Let's get out of here."

He nodded again, she couldn't help but notice how pale he looked.

He was far from fine, that much was obvious.

* * *

She had let him out of the hospital and somehow had managed to keep him from getting examined. Then all of a sudden a woman came up to them.

"Doctor!" Martha let go of him as the woman came up and hug him. The woman obviously knew him.

He barely responded.

Sarah Jane pulled back to have a good look at him. He was so pale and looked like he wasn't even aware of what was happening in front of him. Actually, he looked like he was about to collapse. When it was obvious to her that he wouldn't be speaking anytime soon, she pulled him back in her embrace and turned towards the woman who had been guiding him, she assumed that she worked at the hospital, judging from the coat she was wearing.

"What happened?" She asked her, forgetting that she was angry at him for going there on his own in favour of his current state.

"That is a hell of a story." Martha looked around to see whether someone was looking. "And I'm not sure whether it's safe to tell."

"So you know about his secret then?" Sarah Jane asked, suspecting that he must've told her.

"If that's what you count a secret."

"I'll count it a secret here." She said as she ran a soothing hand over his back and introduced herself. "I'm Sarah Jane Smith, journalist and a long-term friend of him."

"Martha Jones, medical student," Martha answered.

"Sarah." The Doctor mumbled in her shoulder.

"What is it, Doctor?" Sarah Jane answered him.

"Don't feel well." He answered barely intelligible.

"Let's get you home." She said as she softly pushed him away to lead him to the car.

It became very clear that he was barely capable of standing up, which made it almost impossible for her to get him into the car without catching unwanted attention.

"Oh, Doctor." She turned to Martha again. "Would you terribly mind to help me getting him into the car."

"Course not," Martha answered, very aware that he was in danger if they took too long to get him away.

* * *

 

Together they managed to get him into the car, Sarah Jane asked whether Martha wanted to come to tell her story and get questions answered and Martha had answered yes.

When they were in the car Martha quickly pulled out her phone and called her sister, while she was supporting The Doctor, who looked terrible.

"Tish!"

"Martha, where are you, I'm at the hospital but I can't see you."

"I already left, didn't want to deal with everyone there, I'm fine."

"Where are you now?"

"Doesn't matter, I want some time to think this all through, do I see you tonight?"

"ehmm yeah, are you sure about this?"

"Yes Tish, I'll see you tonight." With that, Martha hung up and turned her attention fully back onto making The Doctor as comfortable as possible.


	3. Doctors Doing Their Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for having to wait for more than a month for this chapter, but I wasn's entirely sure what to do with this and was working on other projects as well and this got a bit left in the corner. It's still there for a bit, I can't promise fast updates only that I will update this and that I try to update one of my stories once a week (uploading one-shots count in my head.) , so it can indeed occur that one story gets updated 3 weeks in a row and then other's end up being left for over a month. Just know that I try my best and I hope that you can understand.
> 
> Also, I'd like to claim my lack of medical knowledge again, so if this inaccurate please don't get angry with me.
> 
> I'd also like to point out that this is unbeta'd as my current beta hasn't responded to my beta requests in over a month, so I decided to stop sending these stories to her until she responds to one of the previous (also already uploaded) stories. I'm also considering getting a new one, who hopefully responds.

* * *

 

Rose sighed as she finished her fish fingers and custard, something, among other things, she kept craving during her pregnancy, the pregnancy had been going on for about 5 months now and she was still missing The Doctor terribly. She cried herself to sleep every night and kept having nightmares about that fateful day in Canary Wharf.

During the days she kept herself strong, although pretty much everyone at Torchwood knew the truth but thankfully they didn't bother her with it, they couldn't do anything about it anyway. That didn't make her life less hard as throughout every day all these little things reminded her of the man she loved.

The worst part, however, was the daily visit to the Torchwood doctor, they had insisted on it being daily because it was an alien pregnancy and they wanted to keep a close eye on it, they wanted to know as quickly as possible if there any threatening abnormalities occurred. But to Rose, all these doctors visits only helped with painfully reminding her of the only Doctor she wanted to see.

When she wasn't examined by a doctor she focused on her job as an alien expert, she found that being distracted helped her forget the pain. She knew that this was the same technique The Doctor used to forget about his losses, a method she actually had disproved of, but now. that she had lost something herself, she looked at it in a different way.

She had stopped talking about it, no matter how hard her mother, father or Mickey tried. She had also stopped seeing the therapist her father had arranged for her. The only reason she wasn't giving up all together was the little Time Lord or Lady that was growing in her stomach.

_The only thing she had left of The Doctor._

* * *

They had arrived at Sarah Jane's house. The Doctor's condition had been getting worse and worse and Sarah Jane was getting more worried by the minute and was slightly relieved that they finally were home, this meant that they were also close to the TARDIS and she would help them to make him better, Sarah Jane knew that that was something the old girl would do.

She had stopped the car and quickly got out, saw that Martha had already opened the door and tried to get The Doctor out of the car, who really looked like he was about to pass out, so Sarah Jane quickly started helping Martha.

At that moment Luke opened the door.

"Mum?" then he noticed the condition the Time Lord was in. "What's wrong with him?"

Instead of answering, Sarah Jane quickly got the TARDIS key, she always carried, out of her pocket and gave it to Luke. "I need you to go inside and open the TARDIS for us, we need to take him to the infirmary." She told him.

"Okay, mum." Luke nodded and quickly headed inside.

"Infirmary?" Martha questioned as she had one of The Doctor's arms around her neck to support him. There was no way she expected an infirmary to be in a house like that.

"You'll see." Sarah Jane answered, she had The Doctor's other arm around her neck and she started guiding The Doctor towards her home with the help of Martha.

The TARDIS was in the attic so it took some effort to get The Doctor there but they eventually managed it. Luke had, as asked, opened the doors already so they could get in without having to stop, Luke also followed them into the infirmary in case he could help.

Martha was completely surprised by the fact that the police box seemed to be bigger on the inside but she ignored it in favour of the half-dead alien man that really needed medical attention. Martha suspected that he was suffering from shock, among other things, considering that Mrs Finnegan had been drinking his blood.

"I think he's in shock, he lost a fair amount of blood I reckon." Martha voiced her suspicion.

Sarah Jane just nodded.

They finally entered the infirmary and put him on the first bed. Martha had a quick look around and realised that she wasn't familiar with most of the things lying around there.

That wouldn't stop her from trying to save him.

She quickly connected him to the heart monitor, which was one of the things that didn't look _that_ alien, and started doing a lot of tests with the help of Sarah Jane. She quickly came to the conclusion that he had, as expected, an extremely low blood pressure.

"I'm not sure how his biology works but if he had been human, he desperately needs more blood."

"You're suggesting a blood transfusion?" Sarah Jane looked at Martha questioningly.

"If possible yes." Sarah Jane nodded.

"I know that he used to have some of his own blood sacks around here, but I'm not sure if that's still the case." At this moment the lights of the TARDIS started to flicker. Martha looked up in confusion but Sarah Jane knew that the ship was trying to help.

"Does he still have blood sacks laying around?" She asked the TARDIS.

The lights flickered again, this time in a way that it was clear that it meant an affirmation

"Okay, stay with him I'll look for them." Sarah Jane told Martha and quickly went to the medical supplies closet.

She quickly found the shelf with blood sacks but realised that she didn't know which blood type he had in this body.

"I don't know his blood type, but you will tell me if I got the wrong blood type, won't you old girl?" Sarah Jane asked the TARDIS and got an affirmative response.

She randomly grabbed one of the blood sacks and got a screeching _negative._

"Okay, not F positive then." Sarah Jane mumbled as she quickly put the sack back, Time Lords had different blood types than humans had, so different labels to go with it.

Sarah Jane tried E Negative next again got another _negative_ but this time a less obvious one, she suspected that the TARDIS tried to tell her that she was on the right track so she grabbed E Positive and indeed got a _positive_ answer from the TARDIS.

"Thank you, old girl." She quickly went back into the infirmary with the blood sack and gave it to Martha.

"You sure that this is the right blood type?" She looked up at Sarah Jane.

"Yes. The TARDIS confirmed it."

"The what?" Martha shook her head. "Oooh never mind. That's not important right now." She quickly attached the blood sack to The Doctor and let it fill his veins.

"I don't think one blood sack will be enough, is there more?" Sarah Jane nodded.

"There are two more."

"Good. Let's wait until this one is empty and then look further." Martha said as she made sure that there weren't any more life-threatening problems with The Doctor, but luckily she came up empty.

"I think that's it, now he just needs rest. Although..." Martha's glance strayed towards his broken right hand as she remembered how much his hand had hurt him throughout the day. "I think we might want to look at his hand as well."

Sarah Jane frowned. "That's an injury from a few weeks ago, why do we need to look at it?"

"Because he earlier claimed that he had fallen on it and the fact that it was hurting him was obvious." Martha pointed out.

"Okay, I think it's better if I take care of that, it's a bit of an alien way and I've done it before."

"You originally patched him up?"

"Yes."

"But, what I don't get is, aren't there doctors specialised in his species?" Martha finally asked the question that she had wanted to ask for a while now.

"Afraid not."

"How come."

"Not my story to tell." Sarah Jane looked meaningful at The Doctor.

"Okay." Martha nodded understandingly.

"Anyway, let's have a look at that hand of his." Sarah Jane got up and grabbed the same devices she used to fix his hand up the first time, a pair of scissors to cut open the current cast and a new cast.

"Could you help with keeping his arm up for better access?" Sarah Jane asked Martha.

"Sure," Martha said as she lifted his underarm, Sarah Jane made quick work of the cast and quickly scanned his hand again, only to find that indeed some bones had moved, she set them right again and put the new cast on his hand, in the meantime Martha started explaining what had happened in that hospital.

When Sarah Jane was done with attending to The Doctor's hand and there was nothing left to do for him, except letting him rest, she, Martha and Luke moved their conversation to the kitchen of Sarah Jane's house, with an alarm system provided by the TARDIS in case something changed about The Doctor's condition.

And in this kitchen, Luke and Sarah Jane learned the story of the Judoon, the plasmavore and The Doctor. Among with the story of how Martha had saved the Time Lord's life.


	4. I'm Waking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! Chapter 4 of Trying to Forget. Like said before the updates won't come fast. And I explained that I am trying to update at least one story every week.  
> And I have been failing that too, otherwise, this chapter would've been here a tad earlier. But stuff has been going on in my life, is still going on in my life. And I just didn't feel like writing or doing anything producing at all. I still don't really feel like doing this stuff again, but I currently feel better than I did a couple of weeks ago and most likely I won't go back to feeling that way again soon. But currently, I feel like I can only drag myself to write some stuff but not do anything with the videos I edit as well.
> 
> And when I finally managed to drag myself over to my keyboard and writing program I struck a writer's block.  
> Geesh thanks.....  
> I'm having trouble with getting the story towards the next adventure, which will be an original story, I hope to get there within the next 2 á 3 chapters, but I'm not good at these kinds of things, something I'm pretty sure I proofed in my other series by now.  
> But I managed to get this chapter done, there's not much plot but I'm just trying to make a bridge towards the good stuff, well at least what I consider the good stuff.  
> This is terrible, I'm sorry, just please bear with me and hopefully it gets better, sometime.....

* * *

 

During her conversation with Sarah Jane and Luke, Martha was called by the hospital board, telling her that she didn't have to return to work for an indefinite time, this meant that she could spend her time on getting the Doctor better. After a few hours of chatting with Sarah Jane and after confirming that The Doctor was stable by now, it turned out that he didn't need a second blood sack, after all. After a bit, Martha decided to leave, she had a birthday party to attend to. She promised Sarah Jane to come back the next day and got her number in case something kept her from coming over.

* * *

As expected the party went to hell because of course her dad had taken Annalise with him and from the moment those two had walked in, the party was doomed.

And alsoas expected, it wasn't much later when her mum and Annalise burst out of the bar, her dad wasn't too far behind and then Tish and Leo also left. Martha sighed and left for her own house, nothing she could do to make it better now she figured she could better go back to Sarah Jane's as early as possible the next morning.

* * *

The next morning Martha went back towards Sarah Jane and found just like Sarah Jane had that The Doctor seemed a lot better but wasn't conscious yet, although they suspected that he could wake any moment.

This meant that Martha couldn't do a lot for him, so she ended up chatting with Sarah Jane, who told her that she used to travel with The Doctor years ago and told Martha about some of the amazing things she has seen. Martha also learned the story about Luke's creation, she felt sorry for the boy, obviously not having it easy on getting used to life.

In the middle of one of the stories from Sarah Jane, Luke and a dark-haired girl game in.

"Hey, Sarah Jane." She greeted and then saw Martha. "Hello."

"Right, Maria, I would like you to meet Martha, Martha this is Maria." Sarah Jane introduced them.

"Hello, nice to meet you." They shook hands and Maria sat down next to Sarah Jane.

"Luke told me what happened on school. How's The Doctor now?"

"He's better than yesterday, might wake up soon." Sarah Jane answered.

"That's good. I just don't get why he did that. Why didn't he tell us?"

Sarah Jane sighed.

"As you know, I have disallowed him to go sort out the aliens with us, so when he discovered something on his own..." She let Maria figure it out by herself.

"He wouldn't go to us as we wouldn't let him help out anyway!" Maria then fell quietly. "So this is our fault as well?"

Sarah Jane opened her mouth to answer but Martha fell in.

"Of course not, the reason Sarah Jane had to not let him help was good, but I think he started to feel restless and decided that he felt good enough to do it on his own."

Sarah Jane nodded along.

"I think that's a pretty accurate description of what happened." She added.

"Okay, I suppose that makes sense." Maria said nodding to herself.

Then they got interrupted by a beep, startling all of them.

Martha looked at the beeper the TARDIS had given her and instantly realised what the beep meant.

"The Doctor!" She exclaimed, her eyes wide and locked eyes with Sarah Jane who instantly started to get up and headed towards the attic. Martha, Luke and Maria followed her quickly.

Sarah Jane fished the key out of her pocket and opened the door of the police box that Martha still didn't completely understand. They quickly headed towards the infirmary where The Doctor was. When they were there they didn't quite see why the TARDIS had called them, but soon he started to move and they realised that he was waking up.

Sarah Jane quickly went to sit next to him and took his hand, she wanted to make sure he saw a familiar face as first when he woke up in case he would panic or something.

* * *

The first thing The Doctor was aware of when he woke up was the pounding in his head, actually, his whole body hurt, he let out a groan, then he realised that someone was holding his hand. He carefully opened his eyes and looked at the person holding his hand, to see it was Sarah Jane.

"Hey." She said noticing he had opened his eyes.

"Hi." He answered his voice was a bit croaky.

"How are you feeling?"She asked him

"Terrible." He admitted and then he realised there were more people in the room. Luke and Maria were there, something that didn't really surprise him, but Martha Jones, the medical student that had helped him in the hospital earlier, was there too.

"What happened?" He asked groggily.

"Well, apparently you lost a bit too much blood to that plasmavore, mister." Martha reminded him of the events of the previous day.

"Ahhh... Right..." He said rather awkwardly. "Oops?"

She just shook his head at him but didn't quite manage to hide the smile that was forming.

Sarah Jane, on the other hand, did not look pleased with him at all and he suspected that he would hear all about it in a couple of minutes.

 _Make that seconds._ He corrected in his head as Sarah Jane opened her mouth.

"What were you thinking?! Going there without saying anything! Not picking up that phone I gave you! We were so worried!" Even though she had started off angry, she sounded mostly hurt at the end of that sentence and it really made him feel guilty about what he had done.

He looked slightly at Luke and Maria, he realised that he had worried them as well, probably even scared them as apparently he had been pretty sick after getting a fair part of his blood sucked out of him, he didn't remember much after the plasmavore had knocked him out. Besides this unbearable sadness, a sadness he still felt a bit now.

He turned back towards Sarah Jane and then looked down as a scolded child, which he sort of was.

"I'm sorry I just..." As he paused to figure out his excuse, Sarah Jane's watch beeped alarmingly, startling all of them.

She quickly had a look at this, then turned to look pointedly at The Doctor.

"We'll finish this later." Then she got up. "Luke, Maria. We've got work to do."

She then turned to Martha as Luke and Maria already left the room.

"We've got to take care of something, can you keep an eye on him?" She asked.

Martha nodded.

"Yeah, I'd like to get a proper check-up on his health anyway."

The Doctor cringed at that, he didn't like the sound of that, but he had a feeling he would have to comply or he would feel the wrath of either Martha or Sarah Jane and he had the feeling that neither would be good for him.

Sarah Jane nodded at Martha.

"That sounds like a plan. We'll be back in about an hour, maybe more, depends on what's going on." She said as she turned away.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" The Doctor spoke up, causing Sarah Jane to turn back towards him.

"I have an idea, but I'm not telling you it now, maybe later after it's solved. You need rest, Doctor." She told him firmly.

He nodded slightly but looked disappointed.

Then Sarah Jane turned back around again and this time left the room, leaving Martha and The Doctor alone.

Martha turned to him.

"How about we get started?"

The Doctor let out a sigh.

"Do we have to?"

"You've been out for more than 12 hours and we've had to give you a blood transfusion. Yeah, I think we should."

The Time Lord frowned.

"I've had a blood transfusion?"

"Yeah." Martha nodded. "Your blood pressure was low and even though I don't know much about your biology I figured you needed a transfusion." She crossed her arm in a challenge for him to say that she shouldn't have.

But he just nodded his agreement.

"I suppose that decision makes sense, I probably actually needed it. On the subject of blood pressure, we're quite similar."

"Okay, while I'm happy to help you, why can't you just go to a doctor of your own species, or at least someone specified?"

His face fell at that and he looked down.

"Because they don't exist anymore." He whispered, barely audible, this told her a bit more than when she had asked Sarah Jane, but not everything.

"Not anymore? How come?" She decided to ask.

He looked slightly up towards her and she saw that tears were forming in his eyes.

"Could we not do this now?" He requested, a bit harder this time but still barely louder than a whisper.

"Yeah okay, let's figure out how healthy you are. Now!" She said as she picked up the first instrument. "Let's begin." proceeded to scan him and question him about his biology.


	5. Recovering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooooo.............. it's been roughly four months since I last updated this story....... when I said that the updates would be slow, I wasn't saying this slow!!! errrrrr, I'm sorry?  
> To make matter worse, this chapter doesn't exactly contain plot, but I finally got the bridge to the action, which means that there will be plot next chapter, WOOOO!!!  
> Enjoy your chapter and I'll see you guys another four months from now (I really hope it won't be that long again.).

The Doctor looked up at the ceiling, bored out of his mind. It had been a full week since the incident at Royal Hope Hospital. He had recovered quite a bit but was still very weak. He could barely make it to the loo without help, and it was practically next to the  _bed!_  This was, however, a normal result of losing so much blood that a transfusion was needed.

And guess what had happened to him?

Time Lord blood contained a small amount of vortex energy, ever since said Time Lord had looked into the Untempered Schism, this bit of energy helped to make their bodies much stronger and efficient than humans. However if your Time Lord friend ended up without enough of this energy you would end up with a very weak Time Lord friend, a lack of this energy wasn't deadly in itself, though a lot more nutrients and rest were needed to keep the Time Lord alive. The energy in their blood was replaced with new energy on a cycle, the cycle took weeks and only replaced a small amount of the energy, more wasn't necessary. However, this meant that when there was a shortage of the energy, which was usually due to blood loss as new blood was made faster than the energy.

The energy couldn't be transfused as it was designed to disintegrate the moment it left the body.

All The Doctor could do was wait until his energy levels were high enough again, from Martha's tests they had concluded that his energy levels were two times lower than it should normally be.

He knew that he couldn't just blame the plasmavore for levels this low. He knew that his levels had been lower than normal already before the plasmavore had happened. A part of that energy had gone to his broken hand, but it hadn't been low enough to really bother him, except that he needed to eat a bit more than usual.

The Time Lord looked up as the door of the infirmary opened and Martha strolled in, carrying a tray with food.

"Good morning." She greeted him enthusiastically.

"Morning." He greeted back in the same tone.

"How did you sleep?" She asked him as she put down the tray on the table next to him.

He shrugged.

"Didn't have any nightmares." It was the truth, he found himself thinking less and less about Rose. Sure, it still hurt like hell, but now he could manage thinking about her most of the time. He also still had nightmares every other night. It was getting better, though, and that was the important part. He knew however that he would never forget the pink and yellow girl that was carrying his son.

"Well, that's good." Martha commented as she handed him the bowl of cereal. She insisted on him trying to do as much as possible by himself, both for him to regain strength and for them to know what he could and couldn't do. He had managed to eat on his own without being fed for the first time yesterday. logically it still took him a lot of effort not to mess it up and he certainly didn't want to mess it up as it wouldn't be him cleaning it up. Both Martha and Sarah Jane were busy enough already.

When he was done with his breakfast Martha she put the empty bowl away.

"So, time for your daily medical check, mister." She told him, causing him to groan, he hated these check-ups. Not that they entailed much more than a couple of scans, he just hated being a patient.

"Oh don't complain, you know just as well as I do why they are necessary." Martha reminded him as she started to prepare the things she needed.

"Doesn't mean I have to like them." He mumbled just loud enough for Martha to hear, who just shook her head and continue to prepare things.

 _He's such a child._ She thought to herself fondly.

"Anyway, where do you want to talk about today?" Martha asked him as she headed back to his bed. Martha had forced him to tell her something about himself every day, in the hope of making him feel better about his past. As a consolation, he was allowed to talk about things that didn't matter to him on an emotional level, which usually was him giving her a lecture about Gallifreyan biology.

"Well, I thought it was time to tell you what happened to my home planet." Sure, it was something he hated to talk about, but he had decided that she deserved to know.

"Gallifrey, you mean?" She asked, as she started the scanner and sat down in the chair next to his bed, the scanner would take about 15 minutes to completely scan him, so this was the perfect opportunity for them to talk.

"Yeah." He confirmed.

"What happened to it?" Martha asked him.

"There was a war. A Time War. The last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost. They lost. Everyone lost. They're all gone now. My family, my friends, even that beautiful burnt orange sky. Oh, you should have seen it, that old planet..." He continued to explain how Gallifrey used to be to Martha, and when the scanner beeped to let them know it was done, it was ignored, in favour of the Time Lord's story. Martha knew that she could take the other scans after he was done with his story, that wasn't a problem.

* * *

Over the next weeks The Doctor slowly, but surely, got his strength back. He was still weaker than normal but found that he no longer had to catch his breath after five steps. His life had slowly gone back to how it had been before the incident at Royal Hope. However, both Martha and Sarah Jane disallowed him to go out of the TARDIS on his own, afraid of something similar happening to him.

While he understood their reasoning, he hated that he was basically stuck in the house. Sarah Jane had told him that she would consider allowing him to go out once again after his hand had healed. To burn his time he hanging around with Luke a lot, even more than he had done before the incident. Luke appreciated the attention, the boy was just full of questions he hadn't always been able to ask and the Time Lord gladly answered them.

This was how life was until about 3 months after the incident, The Doctor's hand had healed by now but Sarah Jane still wasn't allowing him to go out again, when The Doctor and Luke were working on an advanced science project, the boy really loved science so The Doctor had decided to introduce him to science from the future and other planets. Now he was teaching the boy how to make an artron energy scanner.

As they were putting the first wires together, they heard a knock on the door.

"Yeah." The Time Lord answered as the door opened to reveal Sarah Jane looking slightly worried.

"Doctor!" The tone in which she his name really caused him to worry

"What's wrong?" He wondered.

She took a deep breath.

"I wish this wasn't necessary, but I'm going to need your help." She told him.

"Mum, what's going on?" Luke was also worried now.

"I think it's better if I showed the two of you."


	6. Miss the Missing (1/2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! you guys are not going to believe this. Well, nor are you going to believe that I actually have an update-ish. I really was planning on having this chapter be longer and have this a one part story, and actually, I had most of that written really only the conclusion left. Earlier tonight I wanted to go and write the last bit to discover that the bloody file with the chapter got CORRUPTED! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!.
> 
> "But Pridia, if your file is corrupted and you lost everything then how can you upload something now?"
> 
> Well, I thankfully didn't lose everything. Yours truly has a weekly back-up set in place for some key files which do include my writing (I can't backup everything cause the hard disk I can use for this is simply too small for that, I need to buy a bigger one sometime, but well that's kinda expensive), so through the backup I have been able to recover the version I had as it was on the 16th of June (the last successful backup). I was on holiday last week and not on my computer but still writing and therefore the backup of last Saturday didn't run cause I was simply not there for it to run but I wrote a lot in the last week and that didn't get covered in a backup %$#!.
> 
> This backup has about 650 words of the like 3000+ words I had written so yeah I'm pissed as that's about 20% of what I had and this chapter was already a pain in the arse to begin with. And now I can go through that again. Anyway someone just advised me to go and use google docs to write from now on (something I actually considered in the past for other reasons) so this shouldn't happen again.
> 
> Anyway I hope you guys can forgive me for this chapter being so short but I had planned on getting it done today or tomorrow or something and then uploaded somewhere in the next couple of days, well there's no way I'll have that done before then but it has been so long since an update already that I just decided that you'll guys have to contend with the writing that survived and that I'll just split the Miss the Missing story arch into 2 parts.
> 
> Now, about the actual chapter (storyline): I know I promised a completely action-packed story, but well I'm not really creative enough for that tbh, it's not my writing expertise I'm afraid so this actually is only a small story arch that really is just a bit of filler, it really is necessary for the story to continue to the next of series 3. Oh, also I'll say in advance that I'll skip the "Year that never was" story arch as that kinda conflicts with how I want to re-introduce Jack into this AU, I know I'll run into trouble with "The End of Time" but I'll come up with something for that. I hope...
> 
> Anyway, enjoy your brief chapter that's probably shorter than the author's note. (Sorry...)
> 
> I might add more to this part to keep it of a similar length to part two, this is probably the shortest chapter you can find on my account and I'm not liking how short it is, I do 1000+ words as my minimum for a chapter usually.
> 
> Edit: I added a part to this leaving the final chapter to have 2000+ words, I hope that's enough. (I'll haunt you if you claim that it isn't enough *stares at you with a threatening look* )

"Over the last 19 days, a total of 420 people have gone missing in a similar way." Sarah Jane started her explanation.

"That would mean that 22.1 people got missing a day!" The Doctor frowned. "That figure doesn't quite add up. Anyway, you wouldn't have called me here if it was just that fact. In what way were the disappearances similar?"

"With each disappearance, there was the same yet to be identified alien substance found at the place they were last seen." Answered Sarah Jane.

"I guess you want me to give a shot at identifying it?" The Time Lord.

"Yeah, there's more you should know though. These people appear to start missing with a constant frequency and even the same amount of them, at least in a way." Sarah Jane explained.

"What do you mean with that? And do you have any actual numbers?" The Doctor asked.

"The first 8 days 3 people disappeared approximately every 5 and a half hours. Since the third disappearance of day 9, which was at approximately 11:20 AM, 6 people started missing each time instead of 3. This amount continued until the second disappearance of day 18, which was at approximately 6:15 AM, since then every time 12 people go missing." Mr Smith answered the Time Lord's question.

The Doctor nodded at the information, mentally making a list of alien species that fitted the information he was given. He wasn't really liking what he came up with, most of the species that the aliens would be difficult to get away from Earth and also be very dangerous to deal with. And while he was normally all-in for dealing with terrible dangerous things, some of the options absolutely terrified even him.

"Doctor?" Sarah Jane had noticed his horrified expression and the fact that he was becoming rather pale. "What is it?"

He turned his head slowly towards her and blinked a few times as he was trying to make sense of everything that was going through his head right now.

"I'm not sure too be honest." He finally said. "There are 6 species that fit the information you just gave me. You never would want to meet any members of 5 of those 6 species, meeting any of those would be very very very bad. If there really are aliens of one of those 5 doing this, we have a huge enormous problem."

"And the remaining one?" Martha asked, who, among Luke, had been quiet until now.

"The Pogans are a rather peaceful folk, if it's them we won't have to worry too much, they won't permanently alter Earth as part of there culture in any way. Well, at least not on purpose."

"But Doctor, why would they take the humans if they're so peaceful?" Luke wondered, then his eyes widened as he realised a possible answer."Could they eat them?" He asked horrified.

The Time Lord nodded. "They have to, on Earth, humans are the only thing Pogan's can find that's edible for them. They don't want to but they still have to survive. They would ensure though that the humans would die quickly and wouldn't even know what's going on though. It's probably the best what could happen with the missing humans."

"They are all dead now aren't they?" Sarah Jane concluded.

"Most likely, yes. Only one of the possible species would keep them alive but you really don't wanna know more than that." The Doctor shared with a shudder. "Anyway, if I remember correctly there was some unidentified substance that could tell us which species they are."


	7. Time to Leave (2/2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Important: If you read the previous chapter before this update, you will need to go back there as I have added to it and without reading the new part this chapter probably won't make sense.**  
>  Anyway:  
> Here it is, the end of the Missing storyline. Originally I planned to call both chapters the same but obviously chose against this. I also originally planned to get this done like a week ago, but if you read the AN of last chapter you'll know that my file got corrupted and that I had to rewrite a huge part of it. To give you an idea as of where I originally was I'll say that everything up to the second scene break of this chapter is rewritten. Anyway it is rewritten and I got it here for you, nothing much to say about it further.
> 
> On another note though, did you guys notice the gaping plothole in my story? Well, apparently not as absolutely no one pointed it out to me and I was left to discover its existence on my own while rechecking my facts so the events in my new chapters can fit them and I won't accidentally add some stuff that doesn't make sense at all considering previous plots. Anyway, I'm trailing off, I realised that the first scene of this story with The Doctor taking off his tie in front of Martha on street complete doesn't fit in this AU. As it involves a Doctor that is still in the same mindset as he was at the beginning of the story with his hand still in a cast but as you should've been able to read he's been healing since then and his hand has healed since. What's more is that the scene is totally redundant since the canon reason for it existing is proving to Martha that The Doctor can time travel but since she now has spent like 3 months at Sarah Jane's house hearing stories about the Time Lord's travel and dealing with aliens herself, she probably wouldn't need the tie scene to prove he can time travel anymore.....  
> So well that leaves me with a huge problem as Martha's thoughts and actions completely revolve about that first meeting on the street for most of chapter 1, so for me fixing the plothole would probably mean completely rewriting chapter 1 or at least heavily editing it.... *slams head on desk* I'm gonna continue chewing it over (I figured this out like over a month ago and still haven't decided my course of action yet). I'll try to fix it but I can't promise I'll do it soon or ever. Suggestions on the plothole won't be turned away though 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the second part of this small and frankly ridiculous story arch

Sarah Jane opened her front door letting The Doctor, Luke, Martha and herself into her house.

"Right then, we need to take the TARDIS towards an Intergalactic Refreshment Station and collect the fuel for the Pogans," The Doctor told them, then looked hopeful at Sarah Jane, who nodded decisively.

"I'll go get the TARDIS key, but you'd do well to remember that it's for just this once. We'll discuss you getting access to the TARDIS back full time later." She told him firmly.

He quickly nodded in agreement.

"Of course."

Sarah Jane looked satisfied and left the room.

Just as she had left the room the doorbell rang. Luke quickly opened the door revealing that Maria was standing there.

"Oh hey, Maria, I didn't know you were back from your vacation already," Luke commented as he let her in.

"We just got back." She answered as she walked into the house, then froze in her steps as she noticed Martha and The Doctor, as well as Sarah Jane who was just returning from wherever she went. "Errr, why is everyone here in the living room?" She questioned.

"We just came back from dealing with some aliens that are stuck on Earth because they're out off fuel," Martha answered.

"We were about to take the TARDIS to go get some fuel for them so they can leave, do you want to join us?" Sarah Jane offered her.

Maria's eyes widened in excitement at this.

"We'll travel to another planet?" She practically squealed.

"Well, we'll be going to a space station, not a planet." The Doctor corrected with a small smile, Maria's excitement amusing him.

"Still, we're going to space travel.  _What are we waiting for!_ " She practically dragged the Time Lord up the stairs in her excitement, he went willingly as he was excited himself, Luke was following closely behind.

Sarah Jane and Martha shared an amused look.

"Kids." They said at the same time before following them upstairs, where the  _kids_  were waiting because they had just realised that Sarah Jane had the TARDIS' key.

* * *

The TARDIS materialised in a very crowded dock for spaceships, the door opened revealing The Doctor walking out while he was donning his coat, he was followed by an excited Maria and Luke and a bit more neutral looking Sarah Jane and Martha, who was internally jumping up and down from excitement at her first trip in the TARDIS, but suppressed it.

"Here we are then Intergalactic Refreshment Station 387BE, the one closest to Earth." The Time Lord announced to his fellow travellers, while he looked around to see where they needed to go and also to note at which dock he had parked the TARDIS, which was dock 3B6F. He didn't want to have to look for his ship later.

He noticed the lifts he had been looking for towards his left.

" _Ah!_ We need to go this way, come on." He said as he started heading off towards the lifts, the others quickly following him.

They reached the lifts just in time as a new lift arrived, which they got all for themselves, The Doctor quickly set to work on some sort control panel and programmed the lift to go where he wanted it to go.

 _Destination confirmed: Fuel station 24_  The Computer announced.

The Doctor nodded satisfied and stood back in between Martha and Luke as the lift took them to the right fuel station.

Martha frowned wondering about the control panel and decided to ask about it.

"Basically this lift goes all ways, not just up and down, enabling it to bring you pretty much everywhere within the station." The Time Lord supplied. "Problem with a lift like this is, though, that it requires a bit of a complex control panel." He nodded towards the control panel he had just used. "They can use these lifts in these stations though as most visitors to these stations work on spaceships and are operating similar systems on a daily basis, so operating the lifts is no problem. And of course, the people who run into trouble can ask the personnel for help. In the future these lifts will become voice-activated, making them easily usable for everyone."

* * *

Getting the fuel after that went really smooth, The Doctor basically had to tell the blue alien at the desk what kind of fuel they needed and hand over the jerry can he had taken with him that was bigger on the inside to be filled, they needed more than a 50 litres of fuel and there was no way they would carry that back through 5 miles of sewers the hard way if they didn't have to.

While they waited for the station personnel to fill the jerry can with the needed fuel, The Doctor took the time to explain about Intergalactic Refreshment Stations to his companions.

"An Intergalactic Refreshment Station is basically a place for spaceships, that aren't as fancy as the TARDIS, and their crew to, well, basically refresh. I think you can compare it a bit to what you lot call a truck stop or maybe a bit like shore leave for the crew." He frowned, but then just shrugged."Basically, they got everything that you might need here, enough entertainment places to help the crews relax after what's often a couple of months crammed into a small metallic place where they are working most of the time, all kind of supplies for further journeys allowing the ships to get restocked here. They also have maintenance docks, ships often get hit by asteroids on their journey leaving them damaged, that's the most frequent repair going on there, but of course, they repair everything that's fixable. They also have teleport pads that bring you to nearby planets, however, the fees for using them are so high that most people don't bother with them and just take a ship down there. The place is basically a city for the travellers."

Luke had something to say though.

"If they have teleport pads, couldn't those Pogans not get fuel through them?" The boy wondered.

"Technically yes, but like I said those fees are very high just to get a lift to a planet, to actually get collected from a planet or get something sent to you would almost be impossible to pay. Especially for species like the Pogans who don't really care about money." The Doctor answered.

"But why are they so expensive?" Maria asked.

"It takes an enormous amount of power to activate one, also they basically need to be always on as it takes ages to get on to boot and the paying people are usually not really keen on waiting for that."

"If so little people use them, then why are they still operational?" Sarah Jane found herself asking.

"Because the people that can afford and use them are mostly the ones in power." The Time Lord answered simply.

Just then the personnel returned with the filled jerry can, the five travellers quickly got up ready to leave.

"That's 2705 Credits, please" The blue alien that had helped them told them

The payment was quickly settled with help of the psychic paper and then they were off again, to deliver the fuel to the Pogans so that they could go on their merry way again.

* * *

The second time that they walked through the sewers towards the Pogan population involved a bit more conversation than the first time around, cause they needed to focus less on the way as this time they knew how to walk. Well, to be more specific the Doctor now knew exactly how they needed to walk.

They were escorted by the same warrior as before, as they had apparently been ordered to wait for their return. The tunnels were empty now however, the warrior informed them that everyone was back on board of the ship waiting for the fuel to be delivered.

 _No pressure to deliver at all._ Martha had thought even though they actually had the fuel, as promised, with them.

Upon arrival, the warrior bowed towards the Jilmeola.

"The descendant of Gallifrey and the human descendants have returned with the fuel as promised, you Jilmeola" The warrior announced.

The Doctor thought that Jilmeo Patsae couldn't possibly look happier upon receiving that news, nor that he could blame them. His human friends didn't think much about the changing expression on the leader's  _face_ , mostly because they had no clue how a happy expression looked with a Pogan, for all they knew the Jilmeo had just decided that he would feed them to the alligators.

"That's brilliant, Warrior, make sure that everyone is on board the ship and that it is fueled. We're leaving Earth." Jilmeo Patsae ordered with a grin.

When the warrior quickly bowed and left with the fuel to get it into the ship the Jilmeo turned towards the travellers.

"Descendant of Gallifrey. Descendants of Earth. I have no idea how I can ever thank you for getting us out of this difficult situation. Do know though that when you ever require assistance, the Pogans will give it to you."

"Thank you, your Jilmeola." The Doctor bowed in thanks, with the others following his lead.

"Now then, I will have to ask you to leave us as we will be ready to leave shortly and as you are probably aware, for most species, it is a very bad idea to stand in the fumes that leave our ship."

The Doctor nodded.

"I'm aware of this and we indeed should take our leave, your Jilmeola."

"Until next time. Descendant of Gallifrey. Descendants of Earth. You are dismissed." Jilmeo Patsae finished.

The Doctor bowed one last time, his friends doing the same before they left the sewers once again and as Martha hoped for the last time.

_Of course, it wouldn't be the last time._

* * *

When they came home Sarah Jane had temporarily allowed them in the TARDIS, mostly because the Doctor needed to put the jerry can he had used back in storage after cleaning it. A Pogan had come running up to them with it at the last possible moment before they left. The travellers had found out why Pogans didn't really run.

_It looked hilarious._

All of them had tried very hard to contain their laughter at the sight, not wanting to offend anyone. The Doctor had been delighted because he got his jerry can back though, he had already considered it lost and since it was bigger on the inside it really was a fine piece of his collection. In contrary to popular belief, it wasn't easy to make stuff bigger on the inside, even for a Time Lord.

Maria, Luke, Martha and Sarah Jane were currently relaxing in the library as The Doctor was currently dealing with his jerry can, although Sarah Jane wouldn't put it past him to also work on some other things while he was here. She wasn't concerned though, the TARDIS had promised her that she would stay put unless Sarah Jane herself told the ship otherwise and even if the ship broke her promise all of them were aboard so even if they left the attic the Time Lord still wouldn't be alone.

Martha and Luke had been overly excited by the Library and were both currently deeply engrossed in a book, both of course interested in a different book.

In the meantime Sarah Jane was catching up with Maria, filling the girl in about the part of today's events she had missed and she also learned about Maria's vacation.

The girl had just finished telling her about the incident with the lost luggage on the airport when they arrived back in London, when Sarah Jane noticed the Doctor leaning in the entrance to the library with an amused smile on his face.

"Everything's taken care of?" She asked him.

He nodded his response, then looked at the two bookworms as he walked over to the couch Maria and Sarah Jane were sitting on.

"Do you think they'll notice if we'll leave?" He asked jokingly as he sat he sat down next to Maria.

"Probably not. Doesn't mean we will though." Sarah Jane told him firmly, he just nodded in answer.

"Don't think they'll want to leave, though," Maria mentioned with a frown.

The Time Lord shrugged.

"I'm sure the fact that they can take the books with them will help." He confided.

"You'll allow that?" Sarah Jane asked.

"Provided they don't leave the house, yeah." He agreed with a grin.

* * *

Despite the assurance that they were allowed to keep the books, it took 15 minutes to convince Martha and Luke to leave the TARDIS. In the end, Sarah Jane and The Doctor had agreed and promised them that they would be allowed back into the library on a later date.

When Sarah Jane had locked the TARDIS again and turned around to leave the attic, she noticed the Time Lord leaning against a table looking at his ship with a sad and slightly longing expression.

She sighed and moved to stand next to him.

"It's for your own well being." She told him softly after a short moment of silence.

He looked sideways towards her for a minute before answering.

"I know, it's just…" He paused, looking for the right words. "Today… Well, today it reminded me of well... you know."

"You miss travelling." Sarah Jane stated. "Saving the day and all that comes with it."

He nodded.

"But the weird thing is… at the same time, I don't…" He admitted. "To be honest, I like it here, I like spending time with Luke, helping around." He frowned. "And I never thought I'd say that."

Sarah Jane nodded.

"I just, I like being part of a family?" He whispered. Sarah Jane noticed some tears forming in his eyes. "But… Well… Rose and our son should be here as well." He finally said in a broken whisper before allowing himself to cry.

She quickly gathered him in her arms, offering comfort because what else could she do.

After a while, he had finally calmed down and pulled back out of the embrace.

"Why don't you go to your room and try to get some sleep? And tomorrow, we can talk about you being allowed to travel again." She told him.

He perked up immediately at that.

"Really?"

She nodded.

"For now though,  _bed!_ " She told him sternly and he quickly nodded before leaving the attic.

Sarah Jane found herself shaking her head fondly at his antics, but at the same time was slightly worried as he obviously was still hurting.

_But who could blame him?_

* * *

Rose awoke with a sniffle, while she had managed to start living again a bit after her loss, she still had nights were she just couldn't stop herself from crying over the loss of The Doctor. It was an improvement though from before when she had cried herself to sleep every night.

It has been 5 months now since she got stuck in the parallel universe.

And she was now pregnant for 6 months, however, based on the development of the baby she was only in week 8 of her pregnancy in human terms. Since the baby wasn't (completely) human no one was worried about that.

She was however worried about raising an alien child on her own, without its father, who also happened to be the only expert on his and therefore their child's species.

She sighed, she had started working on a way to get back along with some of Torchwood's experts.

She had grown up without a father and that wasn't something she wanted her child to experience as well.

_Rose would do everything to find her baby's daddy._


End file.
